The complaining has already begun, based on some of the names we have heard the Cardinals have brought in for workouts. Workouts! I feel like Allen Iverson. “We’re talking about…practice”.
We all want upside, that is to say we all want our favorite team to draft big leaguers. And I’m sure Cardinals front office people care a lot more about finding big leaguers than we do, after all, it’s their jobs are on the line. In order to stay level-headed, let’s just remember:
- 57% of all college hitters in the first round bust. 11% become stars. Including the stars, 19% become every day regulars.
- 65% of all high school hitters bust. 9% become stars. Stars included, 19% become every day players.
- I’ve already ranted about high school pitchers, but college pitchers aren’t much better so I’ll just lump them together. 69% of all pitchers drafted in the first round bust. Just 3% become stars during their first six seasons. Including stars, 12% became average regulars or better.
- About 7 of the 10 names you hear called tomorrow evening are going to flop, even some of the ballyhooed (and expensive) “big upside” players.
Numbers are from ’90-’99 drafts.
If you read the scouting reports, it would lead you to conclude every one of these players is going to succeed at one level or another in the big leagues. They’re just simply not. Most of them will fail utterly due to injuries or just the lack of being able to adjust to pro ball.
In the nineties, the 19th overall pick was good for an average of .5 wins above replacement per year. This is probably meaningless, but 2 out of the ten were position players – Alex Rios and Shannon Stewart, and both players were the only players who did not bust.
Not trying to rain on anyone’s parade, I for one love draft day. But the reality is very few of these players will be as good as advertised. We may read some glowing reviews on a player from Baseball America or wherever, but obviously doesn’t make a player a guaranteed major leaguer, let alone a star. Let’s be patient before judging a draft. In all honesty, we can’t even judge the 2005 draft properly yet. And even the teams that are considered to be the best at drafting take some flops at times.
Tools are good. Upside is good. Actually realizing that upside is much, much better, and we won’t know what player A or player B will perform for sure for quite a while. Let’s not completely rush to make snap judgments.
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may be impossible to find this out…but do players that are considered “high upside” types bust less or more often than “solid, but probably not much upside” players…i guess what i am asking is if having 4-5 potentially well above average tools makes you more likely to be a quality major leagure than having 3-4 solid tools that are already present?
Anyway you can do a study on the success rate of the top 50 signing bonuses, b/c I put more value on those then I do where a guy is actually drafted.
that’s not a bad idea. i can think of some big bonus successes like mark prior, joe mauer, teixera, josh beckett and jd drew, and i can think of some big time failures, such as matt white, travis lee, john patterson, adam loewen, danys baez, ben diggins, gavin floyd, bryan bullington, chad hutchinson (ouch).
interestingly the blue jays and red sox never went way over slot during the 90′s, and according to my study they drafted better than any other team. they both diverted once in the 90′s, when the jays signed felipe lopez and the sox signed rick asaadorian. neither were much value to either team.
thanks for the idea, i’m gonna noodle with this tonight.
gavin floyd is a big time failure? he was a pretty darn good starter last year on a team that won their division.
check his numbers this year. last year is looking like an outlier.
“The Cardinals have asked MLB to void the contracts of four Latin-American signees from last summer, due to ID / Age irregularities: Santo Franco, Eddy Rivera, Lenny Rosario, and Bernard Villar. The four are ineligible to sign with another team for a year.”
I hate to hear that about Franco. I was really looking forward to seeing his stats this year.
hmmmnn, that well put “dose of reality” sobered me right up.
here is hoping the 19th pick in 2009 is one of the 19% that is a future major league regular (hitter) and contributes long and often, or one of the 12% moundsmen that contribute
to a major league rotation.
alright pickle — initial findings.
i looked at top 20 sign bonuses thru 2004. the average pick was 3rd overall, so they are high draft picks. therefore they should be more talented, and expensive. the expensive picks outperformed their counterparts by .1 wins above replacement. yippee.
44% went completely bust. 28% were regulars or better. I’d classify 16% as stars out of the whole.
the only issue is they didn’t outperform the average draft pick in their range, which is 1-3. i’m not sure there is a clear way of looking at this. it seems the expensive picks didn’t start to slide until the last few yrs.
Great work. Thanks for the insight. I must say Mark Prior is looking more like a bust. Ankiel busted out as a pitcher despite similar success to Prior early in his career.